Without stressing the technological aspects of the strange powers of the widely-talented ones—the psis, espers, telepaths which have been so painstakingly forecast by Stapledon, van Vogt, Weinbaum, Vance and others—Messieurs Peterson and Staub have whipped fantasy, forecasts and facts into a stirring and mentally titillating story of a too-imaginative mind.

ore the death of his mother five years before, Black Controlled Atomics, Inc., had grown sufficiently important to command the services of a lawyer of Standskill's caliber. Gradually Standskill had become general counsel to the Black enterprises and at the same time a close friend of Martha Black and her son.

It was chiefly in the latter capacity that the widow consulted Standskill as she approached the end of her life. Her Last Will and Testament, duly signed, sealed, published and declared, left one-half of the immediately-to-be-liquidated estate to her son outright. The other half was put in trust.

Under the trust Martin was to receive the income until he was thirty. If then an audit showed that his net worth, exclusive of the trust, had increased by thirty percent the trust was to end and Martin was to receive the principal. If not, the trust would end and the full amount thereof would go to his uncle Ralph, a prospect which caused Martin completely to lose his stability whenever he allowed

Reader Reviews

This is almost a fantasy story in the sense that the narrator has almost unlimited psychic powers, so that physical laws can be ignored. No one has to walk through a door, conversations don't have to be held--things are just known, or done magically. In short, it's boring, and not just because it's about a real estate deal.

It's written well enough that the words don't intrude, but not well enough to make me care about the character.

Didn't care for it. The story felt fractured and was hard to follow. Basically you're following a person with psi abilities who is trying to help an ailing philanthropist while avoiding a draconian government agency that trains, monitors, and controls all psis.